Tuesday 19 May, 2009

Why is China not Japan?

The biggest datum in global economics is that China has had 10% growth year on year for the last quarter century, that is, ever since they embraced the free market.

In which case its industry (or whatever industrial growth measures) should be nearly 11 times what it was 25 years ago. How many times richer should the workers be? What should they have? What standard of living should they have, on average, attained by now? Have they come very near those theoretical standards?

Is today's English labourer 10 times better off than his Victorian ancestor (who was probably at 1984 China standards)?  

No comments: